Wednesday, October 12, 2005

LINKTuesday, October 11, 2005By Wisdom Mdzungairi LUSAKA, Zambia - International scientists, including those from the United States, have praised Zimbabwe and Zambia for rejecting genetically-modified food donations from the West to feed scores of their rural folk facing drought-induced food shortages.

By standing firm against GMOs, said the scientists, the two governments avoided manipulation and deception, which could have resulted in their vulnerable poor being used as guinea pigs. Regional and international scientists, government representatives, and other stakeholders attending an international conference on Genetic Engineering and Sustainable Agriculture in Lusaka last week, hailed the two neighbouring states' principled stance to mill some of the donated food to minimise their negative impact on people’s health. ....Dr Mae-Wan Ho, an international researcher and head of the British-based Independent Science Panel - a global coalition of independent scientists, said there was no need for the West to foist the technology on Africa, especially when it disadvantaged its populations. "Farmers and governments in Africa should be very careful about the trickery of selling their national heritage in the form of seeds so that companies can control the food supply of the entire world and hold the rest of humanity hostage with their scheme to genetically modify seeds and crops," she said. ...

Ah, so the greens ignore that hunger is decreasing...this article claims if you eliminate China (i.e. a billion people) "the number of hungry people in the rest of the world actually increased by more than 11 percent, from 536 to 597 million." (from 1970 to 1990)

Ah, but that statistic ignores the population increase...so that statistically, the percentages dropped...and, of course, it ignores the improvements since 1990, using 1980's "reports" to justify it's support of primitive farming...

The "dirty little secret" is that poor people in Africa are not being made "guinea pigs", since such food has been sold for years in the USA...LINK

There’s no escape. You are consuming mass quantities of genetically modified food. The milk on your Cheerios this morning came from a genetically modified cow, and the Cheerios themselves featured genetically modified whole grain goodness. At lunch you’ll enjoy french fries from genetically modified potatoes and perhaps a bucket of genetically modified fried chicken. If you don’t have any meetings this afternoon, maybe you’ll wash it all down with the finest genetically modified hops, grains and barley, brewed to perfection - or at least to completion if you’re drinking Schaefer.Everything you eat is the result of genetic modification...

Of course, some activist groups suggests that the problems of hunger and malnutrition that plague sub-Saharan Africa can be solved without biotechnology, without GM foods. And the heads of state of several African nations, including Zambia and Zimbabwe, agree.But a report issued this past spring by the FAO concludes that biotechnology has an important role to play in addressing the needs of the world's poor and hungry.In fact, the report stated that the underfed population would benefit from more research and development of basic food crops, like potatoes, rice, cassava and wheat, as well as so-called "orphan crops," like sorghum, pearl millet, pigeon pea, chickpea and groundnut.They "are critical for the food supply and livelihoods of the world's poorest people," Diouf said back in May.The Green Revolution that dramatically reduced hunger and malnourishment in Asia and Latin America was driven by technological advances. If Africa is to usher in a similar Green Revolution, it must accept the promise of biotechnology.